Where Do States Go? Strategy in Civil War Intervention

Abstract

While the extant literature on the un peacekeeping missions has considered the dynamics of institutional decisionmaking, relatively less attention has been paid to how states choose the civil wars in which they are going to intervene. In this article, I compare state and IgO decisionmaking in civil war intervention and claim that states make strategic decisions and consider the behavior of other third-party states to judge the costs and risks associated with intervention. event history analysis results for the post-WWII period suggest that the timing of civil war intervention is closely associated with the war's intervention history. States become hesitant and wait for longer periods to take action in civil wars in which interventions that failed to influence combatant behavior have been attempted by other states. Civil wars that survive despite heavy third-party involvement discourage other states from undertaking intervention efforts.

UN interventions: The role of geography

“…Stojek and Tir (2011) argue that the economic interests of the five permanent UNSC members play an important role in UN intervention decisions. Some literature has examined third-party interventions in general terms, finding the behavior of other potential intervening countries to matter (Aydin, 2010) along with ideological linkage and geographical proximity (Mullenbach, 2005). Perkins and Neumayer (2008) find that a country's decision to participate in peacekeeping operations can be influenced by its geographical proximity to the conflict nation.…”

International Migration and Military Intervention in Civil War

“…Hence, we include the polity2 scores of the Polity IV data for both the potentially intervening country (Third-Party Democracy) and the country at war (Conflict Democracy). Democratic countries are more likely to intervene (Lemke and Regan, 2004), and intervention may be driven by an attempt to affect the regime of the target state (e.g., Aydin, 2010). For the empirical test of our third hypothesis, we also include a multiplicative term between Third-Party Democracy and Third-Party Immigrants as well as Third-Party Emigrants.…”

The Past, Present, and Future of U.S. Ground Interventions: Identifying Trends, Characteristics, and Signposts

“…989-1012. 38 Aydin, 2010. (or another intervener) may be less likely to intervene in states that are better off economically and/or more capable militarily. 39 There may be two explanations for this.…”

“…However, even if democ racy is less important as a driver of U.S. interventions in the current context, there are other characteristics of the target state, including economic development and military capability that may still play a large role in shaping U.S. decisions about where and when to intervene. 39 Aydin, 2010;Aubone, 2013. 40 James Meernik, "United States Military Intervention and the Promotion of Democracy," Journal of Peace Research, Vol.…”